by Dianne Day
To save myself indeed! I must not forget that such an exercise might well become necessary at any time.
“So you see,” he went on expansively, and I was sure his voice carried to the farthest corners of the elegant dining room, “we have room in the forest for a golf course to rival the one at Old Del Monte. Rival, hell—when folks see what Cypress Coast Company puts together out by Pebble Beach, they’ll want to play our new course first. You mark my words, Fremont. ’Course, it won’t hurt Old Del Monte none. The more the merrier where golf’s concerned. People like it when there’s several courses to play. They’ll just stay longer, play more, spend more money …” His eyes glinted silver in anticipation of these things even while his voice trailed away.
“You are quite the entrepreneur,” I said, smiling. The béarnaise sauce for the filet mignon had put me in a mellow mood. I had not had such a meal in quite a long time, and I reflected that I could easily get used to this sort of thing again.
Braxton leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “You bet! I’m selling advance memberships in the golf club. When the course is built, everybody who’s bought in ahead of time will get their first year free. You interested, Fremont?”
“No, thank you. I am not overfond of golf. I prefer to do my walking without having to propel a little white ball ahead of me as an excuse.”
He pulled a severe face but couldn’t hold it for long. He knew I was joshing. “Too bad. Have some more champagne anyhow—I won’t hold it against you.”
Dessert was a red velvet cake with white frosting. To cut the sweetness, I asked for coffee even though I knew it would likely keep me awake past my usual bedtime. Then I ate slowly, working up my courage to approach the topic I’d avoided all evening.
“Braxton, do you remember that woman you tried to help me identify?”
“The one who drowned? Sure. I thought somebody came and took her away. Buried her, I reckon.” He directed this remark at the cake, as if forking it up required minute attention.
“According to the coroner, she did not drown—but at any rate you were right about her identity. She was Sabrina Howard, an actress from San Francisco.”
“Oh hey. I’m real sorry about that.” He did look genuinely sorry. “No wonder I haven’t been able to get hold of her for so long. It’s too bad. Sabrina was real decorative. Useful, too.”
“Decorative and useful?”
He completely missed my sarcasm. “You know, pretty. Hell, Sabrina was outright beautiful. She was a big help to me lots of times. Kept the men happy, put ’em in a buying mood. But you couldn’t say Sabrina was smart,” he shook his head and looked directly at me, “not like you. Brains and beauty, that’s what you got, beauty and brains. Add some luck to that, Fremont Jones, and you’ll have it made in the shade!”
“Thank you, Braxton—I appreciate your opinion. Thanks also for the fine meal. It has been a while since I had such excellently prepared food.”
“Think nothing of it,” he said negligently, then raised his hand to signal for the check. “There’s just one thing I wonder, though. How’d you find out that was Sabrina Howard? Did I miss something?”
I tucked my napkin under the edge of the dessert plate, properly, without folding it. “I heard recently from a good friend who happens to be a policeman in San Francisco. He has been working with Sabrina’s mother, who reported her missing at about the same time you and I went to that funeral home—so it could not have been the mother who took the body away. My friend has since been able to trace Sabrina’s movements down to the Monterey Peninsula. I presume the police, or someone, recovered her body—but I have no idea how. The information he imparted did not extend to that.”
My statement was deliberately laced with falsehoods; I wanted to see how he would react.
Braxton smiled. That was all—no twitches, no nervous tics, no wavering in the eyes—he just smiled and said, “Well, that’s good then. Her mama can give her that Christian burial you were so het up about. Now to a more pleasant topic: How’d you like to take a turn in the garden outside before I drive you home?”
Since the Del Monte Hotel gardens are spectacular, and do not offer the opportunity of anything more dangerous to one’s body or reputation than kissing in the shadows, I agreed. I do like kissing, and Braxton does it well.
KEEPER’S LOG February 17, 1907
Wind: W, moderate and steady
Weather: Clear, cool, no fog a.m.
Comments: A body was found S of Point Sur early this morning and is being brought to Monterey for identification and coroner’s examination.
I had stayed up all night typing The Merchant of Dreams, not only because I was eager to finish it so that I might have a reason to go over to Carmel, but also because I simply had to know how naive Heloise was going to get herself out of a situation that she really should have had more sense than to get into in the first place. Though I supposed to one in her circumstances, the money really could be a great temptation. At any rate, I am not averse to a certain suspension of disbelief when it comes to storytelling, and I was enjoying Artemisia’s tale immensely.
When the sun came up I went down to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee; while it perked, I went back up the circular stairs to make my morning observations and start the day’s entry in the log. I was back in the kitchen grilling a piece of toast for my breakfast when the Coast Guard messenger came by with news of a drowning to be added to the logbook. This news neither surprised nor saddened me unduly, for a review of Hettie’s previous two years of log-keeping had shown between three and five deaths in the water each year. Of course with two already and it only February, I thought, if the deaths didn’t slack off we might break some kind of record in 1907.
By seven-thirty I was back at the typewriter, quite determined to finish The Merchant of Dreams. I had not much more to go. I rolled in a fresh sheet of white paper and flexed my fingers, meanwhile finding my place in the story. Heloise was living at the Morpheus Foundation now, in a bedroom adjoining the Room of Veils. (Actually, the Room of Veils might more properly have been called the Suite of Veils, but this seems not to have occurred to Artemisia.) She, Heloise, was sleeping almost all the time and having dreams so erotic that it was a wonder the words describing them did not scorch the paper. I quite understood that most people would want to read this novella for the dreams themselves, but I was simply itching for Heloise to wake up and pull herself together! Surely Artemisia wasn’t just going to leave her there with the evil Morpheus—and what was he doing with all those dreams he was buying, anyway?
I found my place and began to type again at page 110, vowing not to stop until the end. Once more I immersed myself in Heloise’s voice:
Morning and night blended into one another until my mind, my very life, was as shadowy and insubstantial as the veils that swathed the room. My breath was shallow; I had little appetite. It seemed to me that they fed me less and less but I did not care. I did not care, that is, until I had a dream so monstrous that I woke myself out of it abruptly—and for once Morpheus was not beside me when I awoke.
In the dream I lived in a blue and green cave, a place that was glittering and cool, so magical that inside the cave it rained from time to time and the raindrops sounded like music. My body was covered all over with blue and green spangles like fish scales—these I wore in lieu of clothes. In the cave I led a languid life; I had no responsibilities whatever, except that I must not try to go outside, or even look through the cave mouth at the world beyond. But I was not lonely, for I had a lover who nightly came to be with me. He was called Oberon.
One night when Oberon entered me, waking me in that fashion as he always did, I dared to question him. I said, “My love, why do you only come at night, in the dark? The cave is so beautiful by day. I wish you could see it, and I might see your dear face.”
“Be silent!” he whispered, his breath moving along my neck like a feather, softly, softly.
The spangles that shielded my skin by day
dissolved in sparkles wherever he touched and left me naked, only for him. Vulnerable, but only to him; for as soon as he left me the shining scales would, in an instant, cover me again. It was magic, and our love was a magic that I had never thought to question—until that night.
When Oberon had spent himself in me and turned away to sleep, I could not be still. A flood of questions rose up and spilled from my tongue:
“Where do you come from, love? And where do you go when you leave me? Why can I not go with you? Why can I not see the world beyond this cave? What will happen if I go and stand in the mouth and look out, lifting my face to the yellow sun?”
He answered me in a low growl: “I come from darkness and darkness sustains me. You are my creature, made from the flesh of my groin for my own pleasure. Count your blessings, foolish creature, that you may stay in this cave and do not have to go out into the world by day to toil in the sweat of your brow. You cannot exist beyond these confines, so do not seek to go beyond your limitations. The light of the yellow sun will blind and burn you.”
Certainly I did not want to be burned and blinded, yet the questions had awakened something in me and now I could not be still. When Oberon slept I left his side and slowly—very slowly—walked to the mouth of the cave. Surely I could not be burned and blinded at night, in the dark?
Not daring to breathe, I ventured to the lip of the cave, taking tiny glances like sips until at last I dared to look my fill, to drink it all in: a world vast and beautiful, of hills folded like black velvet and clear crystal stars winking in a never-ending sky of midnight blue. There was no moon. Yet I could remember the moon, a white orb that rides by night across the sky, an orb whose very constancy is ever-changing—it waxes and wanes and disappears, only to grow and bloom again. This, not the cave, was my world!
I stepped outside and stood poised on the brink of the world. The starlight touched me, and my scales fell in a flurry around my feet. “Oberon has lied to me,” I said. “I am not his creature. He did not make me from his groin after all.”
Behind me in the cave, a disturbance was growing. I sensed it as one may feel from afar a storm gathering. All the tiny hairs on my new-naked skin stood on end, and the hair of my head swirled and crackled. Sparks like tiny fireflies danced in the air, and in their midst a huge darkness coalesced, took shape, and ponderously unfurled its vast black wings—
That was when I woke myself out of the dream, instinctively reaching for Jonah Morpheus, who always slept beside me now, fully clothed, on top of the counterpane. This was—or so he said—so that he could be there to hear my dreams whenever I awoke during the night; and also so that he might keep watch over my delicate health. For a moment I was panicky when I found the bed empty … but then the meaning of the dream began to take hold. I, Heloise, saw the nameless woman of the dream as myself, and Morpheus as Oberon. The dream was a warning.
Even as this realization came to me, Shadow the cat slunk sinuously from between the veils and leapt with cat-grace onto the bed. I knew that Morpheus would not be far behind. The cat looked at me, and I at the cat.
“Speak,” I whispered, hissing on the sibilants, “I know you can. Say what you have to say!” But it only blinked its eerie eyes, then turned away as if I were not worth consideration. And perhaps I wasn’t.…
Even as I had that appalling thought the full truth of my situation came home to me. Jonah came through the veils. I smiled and reached out for him with my poor thin arms. “I woke and you were not here. I was so frightened!” I said in a trembling voice.
He slid down beside me, stroking, soothing, seducing. “Tell me about your dream,” he said. I told him a dream, but I lied, and that lie was the beginning of my liberation.
“Fremont? You up there?” The voice that called up the stairs was Quincy’s. I called down to say that I was, and he said, “Righty-o. I’m riding Bessie inta town. They ’sposed to have a new wheel on the shay this morning.”
Botheration! I was torn, but my care for Quincy won out and I left the typewriter. “Wait, Quincy!” I took the twisting stairs so fast that I was a little dizzy when I reached the bottom. He was already at the door with his hand on the knob, his other arm still immobilized in a sling against his chest. I insisted, “You shouldn’t try to ride or drive one-handed. The chance of your hurting yourself again is too great. Can’t you send Pete?”
Quincy’s eyes shifted away from mine and he said, “Nope. He didn’t show up today.”
“I can’t imagine that he’s sick. Yesterday he looked healthy as a horse.” Pete Carlson was indeed a strong, muscular fellow in spite of his height, which probably was a sore point. Pete couldn’t have been more than five and a half feet tall, which made him a couple of inches shorter than most men and a full three inches shorter than I.
Quincy reached up under his hat and scratched his ear. “Well, you see, the thing is, I told him not to come today. Thought we could do without him.”
“Honestly, Quincy!” I planted my fists on my hips. “I don’t see what you have against the man. He does the work well enough when you let him.”
He mumbled something that I did not bother to ask him to repeat, because I suspected that Quincy was one of those people who, if he cannot do a thing himself, will never be satisfied with the way it is done by anyone else.
I love Quincy dearly, but at the moment I felt quite cross with him, and so I said, “This is really extremely inconvenient. I do not want you to reinjure yourself, but I do not have time myself to ride the horse in and drive the rig back.”
“But Fremont—”
“Nor do I have time to stand around and debate with you about it, Quincy. You will not go, and that is that. I’ll be driving the Maxwell over to Carmel in a little while, and I’ll stop by the stables and ask them to bring the shay back using one of their own horses. Do you think, Quincy, if I can come up with a reason to tell Pete Carlson we no longer need him to work here, that you could get along with someone else better?”
“No siree bob! You better not let him go. Don’t even think of doing that! It don’t do to get Pete riled. Now we got him, I reckon we’re stuck with him for a while. I’ll do better, I promise, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” Quincy trudged out the door, shaking his head.
I raced back upstairs. Soon I was typing Heloise’s finest hour:
By feigning sleep and keeping myself awake during the daylight hours—as best I could judge within the otherworldly atmosphere of the room of veils—I learned that there were long stretches when I was left alone. Except for Shadow. There were times I told myself I should not be so fanciful, this cat was just a cat; but there were other times when I was sure that Shadow was no more a mere cat than Jonah and Thad were mortal men. What sort of beings they were, precisely, I did not know—but the skills of Jonah Morpheus encompassed far more than mesmerism. I was beginning to claim my own mind again, to use it, to understand.
He had entered into my life through my dreams. The stuff of my dreams somehow sustained him, for when I gave him my dreams, he took from me some part of my life force as well. And when I slept he took me sweetly, racking my body with momentary pleasures; but that did not alter the fact that Morpheus was feeding on my soul.
With each day that passed now, I grew stronger. I withheld bits and pieces of every dream; I ate all the food given to me and asked Thad, not Jonah, for more. There was some small rivalry between the two of them, and I think it amused Thad to see me doing something—anything—without Jonah’s approval. I explored the two rooms and found that they had only ordinary walls, the veils were only sheer curtains—but the chandelier I did not approach at all. There was something altogether too uncanny about it.
The day at last came when I was ready. I had not regained my normal strength by any means, but I did believe I could walk down the stairs and that was what mattered. I had a plan. After Thad took away my breakfast dishes, I went into the bedroom and climbed up on the bed. Day after day I had picked away at the top hem of one
of the sheer panels until now it hung from the rod by only a few threads. I broke the last threads and brought it down in my arms, as gray and insubstantial as fog. Yet the fabric was incredibly strong and silky, like nothing I had ever held in my hands before, like something from another world. I bundled it up and shoved it beneath the pillows.
Not much later, Shadow paid his usual morning visit. The cat liked me—often it would stay all day. I petted and it purred. I crooned, in much the same tone of voice that Morpheus so often used with me: “Shadow, sweet Shadow. You love me, I know you love me. You want to be with me, to stay with me, to go with me …” over and over I said these and similar words, until Shadow slept. Then I arose and put on the dress that I had not worn in so many weeks I’d lost count. The diaphanous nightgown I habitually wore, a gift from Morpheus, I draped over the foot of the bed. My old dress hung on me, for I was painfully thin.
Now I knew I must move swiftly. With deft motions I wrapped Shadow around and around with the curtain I’d taken down earlier. Wrapped the cat so thickly that it could not scratch me, picked it up, and ran. I ran through one door to another, suddenly panicked that I might find it locked. But it was not, and I had not really thought it would be. To all appearances, I had long been too weak to flee. I opened the door and listened. The cat stopped struggling, which somehow frightened me more than if it had continued to act like a trapped cat. There was a bond between Shadow and Morpheus—I had both seen and sensed it many times. I was counting on that bond to help me gain my freedom, but I had to get physically away first. It was time to fly, and I did!
Down, down, down the stairs, past dark and silent corridors: fly, fly! A door opened somewhere behind me but I did not turn. I was frail but fleet, my very lightness enabling me to move like the wind.